The great shame: A story of the Irish in the Old World and the New

by Thomas Keneally

In The Great Shame , Thomas Keneally--the bestselling, Booker Prize-winning author of Schindler's List --combines the authority of a brilliant historian and the narrative grace of a great novelist to present a gripping account of the Irish diaspora.The nineteenth century saw Ireland lose half of its population to famine, emigration, or deportation to penal colonies in Australia--often for infractions as common as stealing food. Among the victims of this tragedy were Thomas Keneally's own forebearers, and they were his inspiration to tell the story of the Irish who struggled and ultimately triumphed in Australia and North America. Relying on rare primary sources--including personal letters, court transcripts, ship manifests, and military documents--Keneally offers new and important insights into the impact of the Irish in exile. The result is a vivid saga of heroes and villains, from Great Famine protesters to American Civil War generals to great orators and politicians.

Genres: History, Ireland, Nonfiction, Irish Literature, Australia, World History, European History

731 pages, Hardcover

First published April 9, 1997

About the author

Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982, which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993), which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Often published under the name Tom Keneally in Australia.

Life and Career:

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield, where a writing prize was named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest but left before his ordination. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist, and he was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name. He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List (1993). Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly-titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish rite of passage called rumspringa).

In 1983, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of the Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject in Our Republic (1993). Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. He made an appearance in the rugby league drama film The Final Winter (2007).

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's Lincoln biography to President Barack Obama as a state gift.

Most recently Thomas Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama, Our Sunburnt Country.

Thomas Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former NSW Premier, Kristina Keneally.

Reviews

[GoldGato · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long read. If you have the time to get into the details of the great Irish diaspora, then this is the book. Thomas Keneally has extensively researched the history of the various Irish leaders of the 19th-Century and how they influenced the way Ireland was to be perceived by the New World (North America, Australia).

It was an old pattern: Ireland emasculating its heroes, then passing autograph books to them through the bars.

Keneally starts the book with the history of his own Irish ancestor, a "criminal" who was transported to the Australian penal colony for making threats against his landlord. The author paints a dire picture of life in Ireland, even before the potato famine occurred. Families could be dispossessed of their humble lodgings overnight and left to beg for alms. Crimes were punished harshly, even the most minimal misdemeanors met with shackled imprisonment aboard the Botany Bay transports. Before 1835, most Irish emigrants settled in Canada, usually in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland or New Brunswick. These were the Ulster Irish, who viewed emigration as an opportunity rather than an exile. After 1835, the United States became the preferred destination, especially after the Potato Famine of 1845 caused desperate journeys across the still-treacherous Atlantic ocean. The final allotment were sent to the Aussie penal colonies, where most would never see their wives or families again. At least 25% of the Irish populace died or left Ireland, which suited the Anglo overseers, as they felt the land would be easier to govern with fewer native residents.

But Australia was the opposite of handy Nova Scotia. In the Irish imagination, it was synonymous with the worst kind of exile, the un-chosen one; the exile of chains.

Younger Irish leaders started popping up, mostly from the upper-class Anglo-Irish families. They, too, were transported, seen as dangerous political fiends who might sway the remaining starving denizens of the Emerald Isle. Some escaped their penal chains and set sail for the United States, where they fought in the Civil War (both sides) and established new homes and new careers. In the New Yorks and Bostons of America, they found something they had never found elsewhere, which was leverage and power. The Emigrant Society would greet Irish newcomers and offer them job advice, lodging tips, and the ability to report swindlers and unjust sea captains. Once established, there was also a set process to send money back home. This was a completely different approach than the being-thrown-on-shore experience in Canada or the slavery of Australia. It also explains the long binding loyalty that still exists between the East Coast of the Atlantic states and Ireland.

This book really is a fascinating read. Even the section on the blighted potato destruction reads like a thriller. Today we know the potato blight was caused by a fungus now thought to be extinct, yet it wrecked so many lives while helping to build three newer nations (Canada, the United States, Australia) with the sweat and tears of the distressed Irish. However, the wilted potato is not the book's focus, which instead looks at the very detailed biographies of the various men who clamored for expatriate control. Keneally gets weedy, to the point that he seems to know where an escapee, for example, was sitting while waiting for a clandestine meeting in the outback bush. Still, fascinating.

The fabled rebellions never ignited in Ireland, at least not until the 20th-Century. Every time a new leader expected the populace to rise up to smite the English oppressors, not much happened. Keneally makes a valid point that it was the Irish myth of irrepressibility, rather than the angry armed village, which conquered the world.

Book Season = Year Round (long voyages)

[Owen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The story of what happened to the Irish political prisoners known as the Young Irelanders and the Fenians, in the 1850s and 60s, is expertly told by Australian writer Thomas Keneally in "The Great Shame." Sticking firmly to documented history, about the only thing Keneally leaves out is the nastier side of Fenianism, with its secret vendettas and occasional underlying brutality. But that all lies in the misty past, and Keneally has done a first-rate job of bringing much of this truculent history out into the light.

This is an epic journey, just as the formation of the Irish diaspora needs it to be. You never quite know where you are you going to go next, as ships sail back and forth from Ireland to Australia and from Australia to the Americas. It is the roaring days of sail just before steam, and gold is being discovered right and left on both sides of the Pacific, sufficient to lend impetus to various Fenian schemes through goldfields' fundraising.

One of the characters involved in the 50s was a man destined to become an American Civil War hero with the rank of general. He fought on the Union side while another Irishman who had fought the same battle as he had at home in Ireland, and had also been transported for it, fought with the Confederates. Such were the fortunes of war at that time.

The book also recounts how the Fenian forces tried on three occasions, prior to Confederation, to invade Canada in order to hurt the British in North America. They also had the long-term plan of mounting an invasion of Ireland from a Canadian base. It was all a bit pathetic in the end, but for a time, it was in deadly earnest and who could have said what the result might not have been had the Fenian forces succeeded.

Perhaps the most interesting part of a very entertaining book is the retelling of an attempted rescue from Western Australia of the last group of Fenian "lifers," all soldiers who had been cashiered from the British Army for their part in Fenian plots in England and Ireland. These men had little hope of ever leaving their prison, and were mostly ailing by the time American Fenians had raised the enormous sum needed to buy a ship to go to their rescue. The hair-raising tale of what happened is one of the nineteenth century's best adventure stories, and Keneally relishes the telling of it.

So this is a book which has everything an Irishman, or an Irishman at heart, could wish for. I wonder what the reaction of the English might be to such a tale. The evidence is somewhat damning, to the effect that political repression of the most odious kind was used during and after the famine. Of course, this is only referring to the nineteenth century and does not go back in any detail to the awful story of Cromwell's men or even earlier, which might lead one to think that the English, when they came to Ireland, only did so to practice.

If you've got any Irish blood in you, (and if you didn't previously know one way or the other, this may prove to be a glorious occasion for finding out) you'll fairly quickly be learning to say the old war cry, Erin go bragh. Ireland forever! It's a strange tale and one that should make us reflect about the nature of power and its misuse. It all seems so long ago now but that's just a mirage of sorts, for it was really only just the other day.

Lastly I should point out that writing a book like this must have been a sheer delight. Keneally seems to have visited many of the sites he talks about and they are often in out of the way places. I imagine that it was an absolute pleasure for him to write a book like this and I look forward to the day when he finds time to do it again. I can't recommend "The Great Shame" highly enough.

[Elizabeth Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I very much wanted to love this book because I hoped it would be what Keneally describes in his preface as his hope as well: an Irish version of his masterwork, Schindler's List, focusing on the 19th century diaspora of the Irish to Australia and the Americas. But in Schindler, Keneally went micro -- telling the story of the Holocaust through the life of one man the 1,300 men, women, and children he rescued from the gas chamber -- while in Shame, Keneally goes macro -- telling a century's worth of stories about dozens of men and women spread around the globe. In his acknowledgements, Keneally compares the writing of this book to being locked in a cupboard with a T Rex, but for me, the reading of this book resembled being stuck in in the mud: I found it an interminable slog. As a frequent reader on Ireland, I've found that slog is a good way to describe many books dealing with Irish history and politics. Let's face it -- Ireland has produced far more than its fair share of fascinating characters and figuring out which ones to leave out is a problem for any writer. The heart of Keneally's book is the stories of two groups of Irish revolutionaries -- the Young Irelanders transported in 1848 and the Fenians transported in 1867. Keneally details their pre-revolutionary lives; their failed activism; their arrests, trials and imprisonments; their journeys to Australia; their lives as convicts; their escapes from Australia; their new lives in countries around the globe; their continuing interest in and work for Ireland's freedom; and their deaths. And he fleshes out each chapter of the lives of these dozen or so men with a huge cast of characters -- parents, siblings, friends, wives, children, lovers, cops, lawyers, prosecutors, judges, ships captains, ships doctors, other convicts, etc. I found it difficult to keep everyone straight, and while there was much in the book that was interesting, there was far too much that was repetitive because it basically tells the same story over and over: an Irish freedom fighter's rise, capture, transportation to Australia and escape. However, two things really stood out for me. First, these 19th century folks did A LOT of traveling -- back and forth across oceans, back and forth across the U. S. via the isthmus of Panama or the Missouri river, back and forth across Australia, and back and forth across Europe. Talk about globetrotting -- despite the hardship, expense and time involved in travel in the 19th century, people traveled a lot more than I ever imagined. Second, a group of American Fenians outfitted a New Bedford whaler for a bogus whaling trip whose actual goal was to free Fenians imprisoned in Australia. The story of that successful caper is fascinating.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

It seems almost unimaginable that something as small as a spore could bring a nation to its knees and change the face of two continents, but that is exactly what happened after the potato famine in Ireland in the 1800s.
The potato was the mainstay of Irish tenants, who were evicted by English landlords when they couldn't pay their rents. The potato, the cash crop and their personal dietary mainstay, had rotted in the fields year after year.

As the Irish starved, grains and edible foods grown in their country were shipped to England. It was illegal for Irish tenants to eat food, not raised by themselves, on the estates. Fishing in streams that ran through the estates was punishable, too. It wasn't long before the starving time was accompanied by typhoid and cholera and the Irish began dying by the thousands. There were so many deaths entire villages were wiped out, people were buried in mass graves and, ultimately, there was no one to bury the dead.

For crimes of stealing a loaf of bread to murder, Irish were sent out to Australia in great numbers. Then famine ships began crossing the Atlantic to Nova Scotia, Canada and the United States. The Irish changed the faces of the countries to which they were exported as refugees and criminals.

Thomas Keneally's book follows some of these reluctant immigrants and "criminals." Thomas Meagher was sent to Australia, escaped and became a Union general in the American Civil War. Commanding the Irish Brigade, he led his men in many prominent battles including Bull Run, Sharpsburg, Antietam and Fredericksburg. He later became governor of Wyoming. Soldiers in these Irish Brigades from the East Coast fought and died hard for their new country.
Many of the Irish published newspapers and Keneally's ancestor operated a dry goods store in California. Their impressions, opinions and power of the vote changed the political face of America.

In their home country, attempts to establish Home Rule for all of Ireland failed. It failed first with Daniel O'Connell and later with the Easter Uprising of 1916, which does not fall within the scope of this book. The Republic of Ireland, which a few of these men saw, consists of all but six counties which today make up Northern Ireland.

"The Great Shame" is Ireland never completely recovered by the time of the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922. As the rest of Europe prospered, the Irish continued to lag behind, dealing with poverty, a national guilt of surviving the long famine years and failure by leaders to create a successful 19th Century state as was being done in other parts of Europe. Even today, there are certain foods the Irish prefer not to eat because of its association with the famine.
Keneally's book is a monumental work of a people, their history and their lives in a country blessed with a terrible beauty.

[John Fanning]

Great stories. From the same guy who did Schindler's List - ironically he's Irish-Australian.

The stuff on John Boyle O'Reilly and Thomas Francis Meagher was amazing (the latter: from Irish revolutionary, to Australian convict, to celebrated General for the Union forces in the Civil War, and finally to an acting governor in the Mid-West.)

[Adam Szczepanski · Rating 1 out of 5]

I love these kinds of books, but The Great Shame became just too tedious for me. I only finished about a quarter, and I hope to revisit in the future. Keneally absolutely did his research and writes with authority, but in my eyes, this is also The Great Downfall of a potentially great book.

[Scott Pomfret · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the beloved author of Schindler’s List comes a sprawling account of the lives of dozens of Irish men (and some women) who fled or were transported from Ireland to farflung places, including principally the penal colonies of Australia, the United States, Central America, and Continental Europe. The story begins with one of Keneally’s own relatives by marriage, a minor figure named Hugh Larkin who is meant to typify the Irish in his relative anonymity, his revolutionary tendencies, his forced family-separating transportation, and his new life abroad (including a new wife and family). Quickly, however, the stories Keneally retells are those of the more famous: John Mitchell, William Smith-Obrien, the poet Esperanza and her son Oscar Wilde, Thomas Meagher, John Boyle O’Reilly, Charles Stewart Parnell and dozens of other familiar names. Keneally is a magnificent juggler; for the most part he manages to keep all the balls in the air as he tells these interwoven stories over the decades from the 1820s into the early 20th century. Certain accounts are riveting; the elaborately plotted escape of six Fenians from the penal colony aboard a New Bedford whaler is a tale of great suspense. Other choices seemed a little odd: a minute-by-minute account of the last hours of John Boyle O’Reilly lacked both tension and interest. This sprawling tome needed an editor. (Indeed, the text was marred by careless grammar errors, such as the use of the phrase court martials instead of courts martial.)

Keneally has made great use of original sources, from which he recites at length, and he is a master at deploying particulars to convey a sense of the whole -- at times, however, one wondered whether continuously referring to one member of the diaspora as "Saint Kevin" from beginning to end was a bit laborious and I wasn't sure I needed to hear about the (sad) end of every single one of his offspring, no matter how tangential to the history.

The title and subtitle were also confusing. While Keneally attempts to explain the use of the word “shame” in an afterword, one does not sense in his retelling either shame concerning the failure to build an Irish state or survivor’s guilt. Indeed, I read more frustration than shame into these stories -- primarily at the unending streak of factionalism and backstabbing that typified every effort to launch a free Ireland in the period. As for “triumph” of the Irish in the English-speaking world, the lives told were indeed in some cases very successful and even redemptive, but as many ended in the gutter dead of alcoholism or its complications. Triumph did not seem like le mot juste for this disparate collection of lives.

[Lisa Houlihan]

I did not think much of the writing in Schindler's List, which I recently read, and here I found that the style was not due to Keneally being cajoled into writing that book but that it really is his own. He drops the "and" from a series of three when the conjunction would clarify and he uses fragments without intention. Not like this. Where they do not add to his point. But detract.

Plus I just finished Governess about miserable C19 people so maybe I should take a break from miserable C19 people before facing more, especially in a voice I don't like.

(He writes -- in the 1990s! -- that in the 1830s the "droit de seigneur" was still in effect in Ireland. I'm sure peasants suffered rape aplenty but I'm surer that this "right" was neither codified nor regularly practiced.)

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I began The Great Shame I really enjoyed it. The depth of study into the lives and exploits of the persons depicted - especially the story of Hugh Larkin, Keneally's own ancestor. This story had the most energy, but when Hugh's tale was done, so was my enthusiasm. I found the escapes and releases of the transported Young Irelanders interesting, but their move into the American politics of the Civil War era lost me and I couldn't do more than skim the last third of the book. Perhaps if this wasn't the third historical text I've read in the past three months I might've been able to sink my teeth in a bit more.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

It reads a bit like a textbook, but if you're looking for an in-depth account of the Irish diaspora of the 19th century, look no further. Keneally spends a great deal of time talking about Australia, as that's where his Irish ancestors ended up, and I found it interesting, as I knew nothing about the Irish in Australia. He also made a careful note of the Irish involvement in the American Civil War. Unfortunately, due to school constraints, I never finished it, but I hope to pick it up and finish some day.

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a truly interesting history of shameful period in British history and, as the title indicates, the resilience and overcoming spirit of the Irish people.
The impetus for the book was Keneally's family history, so the key figures are his predecessors and those linked closely with them. This is a dense book which I found hard to journey with, so it took a long time; in between, I read other things - some related to the period (i.e. The Great Hunger) and others not!
I think it's a book to which I will return at a time when there are fewer distractions in my life!

[Colleen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ok - I didn't finish this book. It started out great. The guy is a gifted writer and he wove together more personal stories and political goings on very well. But, alas, he got terribly bogged down in the irish exile to Australia of the many key political figures during the mid 19th century. Nothing happened at that time! So, you don't have to convey real time with page after page of "nothing happened". I may come back to this one...

[Jack Sheedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big, rambling, true history of several Irish families, including the author's, fighting for personal and Irish freedom on a world stage. There is no narrative arc, though, and it lacks a certain focus, following one family, then another, until we lose track of things.

[Cyndi Mitas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very long and dry book. If you LOVE Irish history you may enjoy this book. I found it difficult to maintain interest.

[Sean Meagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book must have been a true labor of love to compile. Culled from letters, diaries, and many other forgotten texts, Keneally offers more information on Young Ireland and the Irish involvement in the American civil war than I ever imagined could possibly be available. The majority of the massive tome reads very much like a textbook, which made the beginning parts focused on Tasmania a bit tough to wade through. If like me, you can’t get enough Thomas Meagher, the middle majority of the book is stunning. If the “Immortal Irishman” was an action movie about his life, than this book is a 10 part PBS documentary. I would recommend this book for someone already versed in the Irish famine and early Irish American history, and already familiar with the cast of characters and various plot lines. The textbook style of the book would not make it a great introduction to these topics, but as further reading for the already curious, the sheer magnitude of information will be highly satisfying. The painstaking time and effort if must have taken to put this together is almost unimaginable, truly worthy of regard as “an achievement.”

[Paige McLoughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

History mostly 19th century of Irish diaspora and struggle for independence and of course the famine. Ireland was one of the earliest colonies of England concurrent with the Spanish colonization of the new world. Stories of oppressed populations are often similar with exploitation, resistance, and rebellion as common themes I mean that is common sense and it leaves marks long after said oppression lifts. Not saying the Irish are anywhere near the worst cases among oppressed populations I mean outright slavery and genocide were carried out on African and indigenous populations around this time. But down and out people do have get marks even if the oppression is lighter. I probably have more of a stake in the story because it affected my ancestors but it is interesting always to get the story from the business end of the exploitation process.

[Cheryl Walsh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-researched and quite readable. Keneally is a great storyteller and clearly a lover of history. It may seem like a silly nit to pick, but his use of the word "Democrat" as an adjective was quite jarring. I don't know if that was the norm in the 19th century, but currently it is a sign of brazen disrespect and kept making me feel he was coming at the history from a far-right slant. I didn't see any other sign of radical Republican bias, so I wonder where that tic came from. There are many threads to this tale, and many characters, all well drawn. The details were overwhelming, but that's the way it is with these kinds of histories. This is very good history for a fiction writer, but I don't trust it implicitly, and it didn't really give me a taste to find out more.

[Tony · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book and thought it would be great but...in a word - boring. I think there should have been more of a story developed instead of the authors intent to make it as historically accurate as possible. It was obviously painstakingly researched but in the end the research took over and prevented it from being a good read. The Hugh Larkin part was interesting and a book on his life up until he died would have made a good first book. The American Civil War part was like reading an old school history book The book is over 700 pages long and it is a real commitment to read it.

[Gwen Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a tour-de-force. Keneally is masterly as writer and historian, telling with clarity and humanity a history of Ireland through the 1800s - a century of famine, rebellion, English disregard and repression, abuses by landlords, religious conflicts, and mass migration. This is 700 pages of narrative drama and suspense, heart and compassion. I often marvelled at how Kineally held together the narrative arcs of the members of Young Ireland from the 1840s through prison, transportation to Australia, escapes or pardons, lives in the United States, some in return to Ireland. Not until the last page does he examine the various meanings to the title - "The Great Shame."

[Maureen E · Rating 4 out of 5]

Listened to audio book; nicely narrated.
Interesting story I knew nothing about prior to this book.
Good to look at WW2 from a different perspective than American or European.
It was a bit long in an attempt to develop the characters and setting prior to the prisoner escape.
The difference between Japanese, Korean and Italian POWs in terms of their acceptance of being captured was the main theme of the book.
Reading about the shame they felt and their desire to die rather than survive the war as a POW was foreign and disturbing to me as it was to the Australian military.
Lots to think about.

Loved his other book, Sins of the Father.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Much as I love and respect Thomas Keneally, this extremely well-researched and detailed hist9ry I of Ireland was too replete with names, places, incidents and ( dare I say) minutiae for me to follow.
The early parts, dealing with the Irish being shipped to Australia and van Diemans land was quite visual and poignant, but eventually the book became tedious. I wish others better luck.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

A deep dive into the 19th Century history of Ireland and the punishment of "transportation" to Australia. Keneally starts with the case of one of his ancestors and wanders all over the place from there. A lot of interesting information, but the lack of focus makes it all kind of a slog.

[Guera25 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well-researched, but deadly dull after the first 200 pages. I began to eye the book with loathing near the end, as though it were an enemy to be conquered rather than an informative read. No triumph on view, either, just a long slog through faction, failure, and disappointment.

[Rachel Rothwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing and moving book about the treatment of the Irish home and abroad. the influence those who were transported on the rest of the world. Need to keep a track of manes otherwise it can be confusing.

[David Gagen · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superbly researched & written book that sheds light on Irish rebellion from convict Australia to the Civil war years in the US. The threads linking the chief protagonists are so cleverly woven throughout the book which spans the last 50 years of the 1800's. A towering achievement.

[Wyktor Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really in depth book about the struggles on the Irish.
Tough reading in places as it's so heart-wrenching at times.
Not for the faint-hearted.

[Matt Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant historical work, examining the Irish diaspora.

[C.C. Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was an interesting read. Took me a while to get through as I found it a bit dry, but learned a lot in the process that I didn't know about.

[Dave Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well researched and detailed book written by a wonderful writer but with a few too many tangents to be a five star.

[A. H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

An excellent book, but way too long and detailed for the general reader.